At 1:35 on Tuesday June 25th President Obama will speak at Georgetown University on the growing threat of climate change. He will lay out his vision of where we need to go, to do what we can to address and prepare for the serious implications of a changing climate. Tune in at whitehouse.gov/live

This quote from the video makes me laugh and angry at the same time:

“We’ll need scientists to design new fuels and farmers to grow them,” he said. “We’ll need engineers to devise new sources of energy and businesses to make and sell them.”

The hell with “new fuels and farmers to grow them”, biofuels are low return on investment and raise the cost of our food supply; just get a Thorium reactor program started. The technology has been around for years, and the Chinese are already headed down that path.

Carbon Pollution? Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant. I can’t believe they get away with that sort of language. Pollutant and Pollution become meaningless words if they are applied to atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Biofuel kills innocent people. How would you like to be an Asian Mother watching her child starve because the manufacture of biofuel has so raised the cost of food that your meager income can no longer cover subsistence food. There is no circle in Dante’s Hell COLD enough for those who advocate biofuel.

Obama: “There’s no single step that can reverse the effects of climate change, But when it comes to the world we leave our children, we owe it to them to do what we can.”

.”.. and what I can do is spend $100 million taxpayer dollars and generate 1000+ ton carbon footprint for my family vacation I start tomorrow. I’ve cut out the safari… we all have to make sacrifices. You all save the planet while I’m gone.”

To paraphrase Rumsfeld’s famous contribution to English lexicon, there are idiots who know that they are idiots, and there are idiots who don’t. The ones that don’t are most harmful. Obama doesn’t know. And we all are going to pay for this for a long, hard time to come.

It’s back scratching time.
I’m sure the deals really got sweetened through 501c(4) organizations where donors aren’t revealed. Get a donation declaration open secrets.org can look at and most people probably think that’s all there is to it. When the real money (70%) can go without a name on it that the public can see.
I didn’t have time to track much of the $2.6+ billion, but saw a couple million from Robertson and Walton.

The only thing it’s necessary to say about “the growing threat of climate change”, Mr. President, is that none of the threat comes from the climate and all of it comes from increasingly shrill and desperate politicians. Stop Climate Change – Abolish Politicians Now!

Alexander Feht June 22 10:26pm:
“He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool: shun him;
He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is simple: teach him;
He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep: waken him;
He who knows, and knows he knows, is wise: follow him.”

Don’t pay any attention to
1) the invasion of your privacy, the reading of your emails, the tapping of your phones
2) the use of the IRS to crush his political enemies,
3) The Bengazi cover-up
4) The Fast and Furious debacle,
5) The attack on religious freedom,
6) The use of the EPA to attack businesses of political enemies,
7) The use of email aliases to conceal nefarious activity,
8) The attempt to circumvent the 2nd Amendment,
9) The explosion of food stamps,
10) the rise in the chronically unemployed population
11) and on and on and etc…..

Obama: “to save the planet I’ll need to raise taxes on y’all to give to my scientist friends to conduct studes that will tell me I need to raise taxes on y’all. Meanwhile I’ll be golfing and/or on an exotic vacation”

What an embarrassment to the USA this donkey is, almost as big a fool as OZ’s Gillard. Mitigation is the greatest con and fraud experienced for the last 100+ years. There is zero the OECD can do about the climate or temp even if we all believe 100% in CAGW.
By 2035 the OECD will increase co2 emissions by just 6% but the non OECD will increase emissions by a whopping 73% and starting from a much higher base. Just look up the EIA projections.
Every billion then trillions will be flushed down the drain forever for a guaranteed zero return for the climate and temp.
Certainly Anthony’s proper choice of new nuclear technology won’t make a scrap of difference. Christy has done the maths on building 1000 new nukes and the impact by 2100 is SFA. What is it about these simple sums that these numbskulls can’t understand?

Wikipedia: Biofuel in the United States
Since 2005 the US overtook Brazil as the world’s largest ethanol producer. In 2006 the US produced 4.855 billion US gallons (18.38×10^6 m3) of ethanol. The United States, together with Brazil accounted for 70 percent of all ethanol production, with total world production of 13.5 billion US gallons (51×10^6 m3) (40 million metric tons). When accounting just for fuel ethanol production in 2007, the U.S. and Brazil are responsible for 88% of the 13.1 billion US gallons (50×10^6 m3) total world production. Biodiesel is commercially available in most oilseed-producing states…
According to the Renewable Fuels Association, the ethanol industry created almost 154,000 U.S. jobs in 2005 alone, boosting household income by $5.7 billion. It also contributed about $3.5 billion in tax revenues at the local, state, and federal levels. On the other hand, in 2010, the industry received $6.646 billion in federal support (not counting state and local support)…

It appears climate ‘change’ can be used to justify green insanity. ‘Green’ policy excludes logic and reason. If the objective is to fight climate ‘change’ then fudged analysis can be used to justify green scams. Actual costs, impact on the economy and impact on the environment does not matter.

The EU is leading the Western countries off an economic cliff. Obama is proposing to use the power of EPA legislation to follow the EU off of the economic cliff by subsidizing and mandating green scams. An example is the EU and US mandates that a percentage of all transportation fuel shall be biofuel. Unfortunately if unbiased economic and engineering analysis is done (including all energy inputs, including fertilizer, and including the need to cut down virgin forest to make up for the loss of agricultural land to grow the food to convert to biofuel) the conversion of food to biofuel increasing the amount of CO2 emitted as opposed to burning ‘fossil’ fuel.

In addition to no reduction in CO2 emissions there is the problem the practice increases the cost of food for people and will lead to food wars, if it not stopped. … ….As there is a fixed amount land for human agriculture and there are strong farm lobbies in every Western country and there are lucrative subsides for the madness, a large amount of Western farm land is being used to grow food to convert to biofuel which results in a net loss of food for people that must be made up for either by starving people in third world countries or cutting down virgin forest. For example 40% of the US corn crop is now converted to ethanol.

From its first appearance in 1978 to this past December 31st, the policy provided over $20 billion in subsidies to American ethanol producers, costing the U.S. taxpayer almost $6 billion in 2011 alone. Enacted in the spirit of “energy independence,” ethanol subsidies became a redoubt for the agricultural lobby and a lighting rod for criticism from environmentalists and sustainability advocates … ….To add to the environmental cost of U.S. corn ethanol is the potential of its expanded production to raise global food prices, potentially increasing the likelihood of social unrest and instability worldwide. Some 40 percent of the American corn crop is now distilled into fuel, and The Economist has estimated that if that amount of corn were used as food instead, global food supplies of corn would grow by 14 percent. Both the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization have noted the positive link between U.S. corn ethanol production and rising corn prices. Because of America’s position as the leading corn producer and the status of Chicago-traded corn prices as a benchmark for global ones, the U.S. can have an outsize impact on worldwide food prices. Indeed, corn prices have more than tripled in the last ten years, in no small part due to the ethanol boom.

The Clean Energy Scam
The U.S. quintupled its production of ethanol–ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter–in the past decade, and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. Europe has similarly aggressive biofuel mandates and subsidies, and Brazil’s filling stations no longer even offer plain gasoline. Worldwide investment in biofuels rose from $5 billion in 1995 to $38 billion in 2005 and is expected to top $100 billion by 2010, thanks to investors like Richard Branson and George Soros, GE and BP, Ford and Shell, Cargill and the Carlyle Group.

But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it’s dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investors as well as by President Bush as the fuel of the future, looks less green than oil-derived gasoline. … ….Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. Harvests are being plucked to fuel our cars instead of ourselves. The U.N.’s World Food Program says it needs $500 million in additional funding and supplies, calling the rising costs for food nothing less than a global emergency. Soaring corn prices have sparked tortilla riots in Mexico City, and skyrocketing flour prices have destabilized Pakistan, which wasn’t exactly tranquil when flour was affordable.

The illegal burning of forest on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, to the west of Singapore, to clear land for palm oil plantations is a chronic problem, particularly during the June to September dry season.

“They the (US) have land for food or land for energy but not enough for both, unless they destroy whats left of the natural environment.”

That is so much clap trap: we have ample land for farming with plenty oil and gas in the ground. All of which can be used with little damage to the environment. Modern oil and gas extraction if far cleaner than it was even thirty years ago, The on site waste pits are gone, water is being treated right on the drill sight so it can be reused, they are looking at using waste gas to generate electricity right on the pad, and they can now drill up to six wells from one pad. They (the evil oil companies) are even looking at waterless fracking.

As to farming land that use to produce 25 bushels of wheat can now produce double of that. The use of minimal till has cut soil erosive way down. The amount of land being tilled is dropping not increasing. We presently have more forest than we did just one hundred years ago.

If you want to see the real America I suggest you drive US highway 83 from Texas to North Dakota and then drive US highway 85 back. You will drive through the two top producing wheat states, Kanus and North Dakota, The first and second oil producing states, Texas and North Dakota, I beleive Texas is the number on electricty produce and North Dakota is fourth. North Dakota farms produce sugar, sunflowers, barley, soy beans, and dry beans.

When you drive those highways you will see some of the lonesome areas as well as some of the most productive areas. The The strange thing about it they are only a hundred apart, Harding county in South Dakota is empty less that on hundred miles away McKenzie Count in North Dakota is booming, Highway 85 in McKenzie county is like I40 in Arizona except 85 is only two lanes. There are place on both 83 and 85 that cell coverage is non existent and they are others where all you see is miles of tilled fields. There is few large cities on either, most towns on either route are small. I will caution you though on 83 and 85 in North Dakota don’t dawdle since some oil truck will run you over.

Yet even with oil development North Dakota still has a population density of less than four people per square mile. To some of the long time residents of North Dakota do consider that somewhat crowded. And if you wonder down to Harding county in south Dakota is there is less than .5 people per square mile even with that some people in that area consider that a bit crowded.

If you would only venture away from the coasts you soon learn that most of America is vast and empty. There is still plenty of free and open spaces, all though they are getting harder to see since the greenies are putting up huge no trespassing signs in the for of having vast areas declared wilderness areas. Closing long standing roads and restricting long time resident access to those areas.

No the treat to our wild area are the armchair environmentalist they seem to think neglect is the way to preserve something, instead it leads to moonscape environment after large uncontrolled wild fires run through fragile western forest and brush areas. What they fail to understand is most ecosystem have been change irrevocably due to the introduction of invasive species, and fire and logging restriction allow those invasive spices thrive. That only leads to unnatural fuel loads so when fire a natural part of a large number of ecosystems come to those ecosystems it is devastation to all. Road closures inhibit proper management invasive spices that now inhabit such ecosystems so when fire does come it is devastating to the natural spices, lastly road closures denies firefighter access those ecosystems when the fire does come, road closures allow small fires to balloon to large uncontrolled ones.

Anthony: Totally agree with you on the development of the thorium-fuelled LFTR reactor. Kirk Sorensen and his private Flibe Energy company have been working on and promoting the LFTR reactor with all its advatanges for some time now (www.energyfromthorium.com). And for some time now I have been promoting the idea of phasing out our fossil fuel plants with nuclear plants like LFTR so that our coal and natural gas supplies can be freed up. The freed up coal and natural gas supplies could then be used in gas-to-liquid and coal-to-liquid plants to further reduce our crude oil imports (and maybe someday eliminate them). I would think that the excess heat from LFTRs could be used for this purpose. It is said that we have enough thorium reserves here in the U.S. to possibly last us for a millenium if not longer.

Furthermore, LFTRs can be used for saltwater desalination along our coastlines (especially in Texas with its drought problems…we should have built desalination plants along Texas’ coast a long time ago).

LFTRs can be used to draw down and eliminate our plutonium by-products from existing reactors to generate electricity (LFTRs will need plutonium for startup). Plutonium is a nuclear fuel for reactors like LFTR, not waste. It is just sickening to watch China develeping LFTR for use in their country when it is a nuclear technology that WE created and tested for ourselves at ORNL back in the late 1960s. Nixon stupidly pulled the plug on it for political reasons in the early 1970s.

It is bad enough that Obama has the CAGW issue totally wrong, not to mention all the scandals. Now as he couples it with bad energy policy as well (biofuels, wind, solar), it demonstrates how this president totally has his head up his derriere. God help this nation as we desperately struggle with this idiot for three and a half more years.

More about biofuel. In Indonesia many acres of jungle are being burned. So many that the smoke and smog is affecting the air quality in Singapore. The reason for the wonton destruction is to convert those areas to palm plantations to produce palm oil biofuel. This process completely ignores what is known about slash and burn agriculture. Jungles have very thin layers of topsoil. When this thin layer is depleted what will be left is barren moonscape. Which is why slash and burn agriculture continually moves to new areas. What the biofuel zealots are advocating is only advanced slash and burn. Slash and burn is well know to be a destructive agricultural practice. The ecofascists are destroying the ecology in the name of what??

“Global warming has subjected Bangladesh to an increasingly frequent and erratic pattern of floods, cyclones, droughts, colossal tidal surges along its southern coasts and unreasonable high level of monsoon rainfall causing landslides and heavy river erosions while absence of seasonal rain in the north causing desertification.”

“Bangladesh may lose one-third of its landmass due to the rise of sea level, which is the direct outcome of climate change. The impacts of higher temperatures and sea-level rise are already felt.”

“Money to combat climate change is not enough and rich countries should feel obliged to offer assistance to Bangladesh which is facing devastating disasters, occurring for no fault of its own. The world should not stay indifferent when the country is poised to go under the sea.”

“The country especially needs help from those rich nations whose carbon emissions have created the problems and they should also be prepared to open their doors to millions of Bangladeshis who will become climate refugees.

Given these realities, the donors should spontaneously come forward to help Bangladesh’s efforts to combat the fallout of manmade climate change. It is important to remind them that climate funding was largely seen as a compensation for the industrial excesses of the west over the past century and the traditional donor-recipient formula was not acceptable under these circumstances.”

The primary fuels we have were provide by Mother Nature, and she did the dirty work for us millions and billions of years ago. The energy provided in hydrocarbon fuels are the result of photosynthesis from solar energy and for nuclear fuels from supernovae.

To “design new fuels” from whole cloth will be an environmental disaster many times anything realized from the production of our current primary fuels.

It took 100’s of millions of years and millions of cubic kilometers of ocean water, and photosynthesis to deposit 100’s to 1000’s of feet of organic rich sediments in basins across the globe. These organic rich sediments where then buried by solar energy. Yes, solar energy evaporated the water from the seas and lifted it 10,000 plus feet into the mountains and the rains formed river that carried the sediments to the oceans and deeply burial the organic layers. Then, energy from supernovae in the form of radioactive decay of uranium, thorium and potassium heating the interior of the Earth pyrolyzed the deeply buried organic matter to form liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons, and coal.

So, the scale of production (e.g. land area, water volumes, farm produced organic matter, etc.) needed to make these newly design fuels that would replace any significant fraction of the ~500 quadrillion Btu’s that is consumed yearly, will make an oil refinery look like a nature preserve.

I loathe with an absolute passion propoganda aimed at children. I don’t care if anyone finds this view extreme once you start to politicise children, even with the very best of intentions, you are on a very slippery slope.
To look at the concept of this video, I ask why? Are the children paying the taxes? Is Obama going to tax pocket money? No. There an only be one motive for a video such as this and that is pure propoganda, to place the views of the state above the views of the individual, in this case the parents paying the taxes, whose views on these taxes make them appear to put self before “necessary” sacrifices to “save the planet”.
What will be the next video produced, to be aimed at children? Probably films of staged atrocities committed in some foreign country, justifying Obama’s policy of invasion? I sincerely hope not!
If Obama looked at some old films of Josef Goebells visiting schools and recruitment programmes for the Hitler Youth, he might have some idea what I am talking about. At the time, that seemed like good innocent fun too!

Oh goody… Let’s take more printed money and incinerate it solar furnaces, shred it with wind turbines and ferment what’s left in corn stills….”For the children’s sake”… I can’t wait…

Had we taken the $100’s of billions of taxpayer/printed money that have been incinerated, shredded and fermented on “alternate” energy boondoggles and spent PRIVATE sector money building Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, the US would have been 100% energy independent by now with energy costing 50% less, grain prices would be much lower, industrial production would have flooded to our shores to take advantage of the cheapest energy on the planet, oh, and not that it matters, CO2 emissions would be about 50% less.

As a side benefit, we could have flicked the Middle East the bird and say, “ya’ll work your out your collapse amongst yourselves, we don’t need your frigging oil.”

The big-government elites have other agendas that takes precedence over logical market-driven solutions, so we’re stuck incinerating, fermenting, shredding more printed money while those insane agendas are brought to fruition.

This death spiral of incompetence and political elite agendas will continue as long as gigantic elitist governments and crony crapitalism (as opposed to free-market capitalism) control our managed destruction.

Over the past few weeks in Canada the news media has been crowing that Obamas’ Brandenburg gate speech would draw at least 200,000 people. It drew about 5000. The media in Canada are worse Obama lapdogs that the American media, if that is conceivable. There has been little reporting about Obama’s string of scandals in Canada, its like they have thier head in the sand, in Canada Obama can do no wrong. We’ll see how the Canadian news media handles this upcoming climate speech on Tuesday. No matter how bad it is, Canadian news outlets will let him off the hook and continue to embarrass themselves by fawning over his every word.

The puppet masters are working hard but Threat of climate change and Carbon Tax is not going to go over well with the public

As I keep saying, 97% of all people are thick as two short planks, totally uneducated morons who can be lead by the ring in the nose without complaining. Oblarny knows that if you promise them money they will vote for anything and anyone.

Prices of puzzle all together now, Carbon Tax (scam) coming soon if Obama and the democrRATS get their way.
Electricity rates to skyrocket and Everything else will with them.
Every time you pay future electric bill a solar panel on a house or building will come to mind. Carbon Tax (scam) is a ploy to make electricity rates go up so tax credits, subsidiaries can continue. Obama thinks higher rates will push people to install solar but the the middle and lower class will feel more pain in their wallets because most can not afford to install them.

Carbon Tax (scams) will be imposed on everything if the first one is imposed on power plants.

Stan, what you say just confirms the illogicality of AGW, slash and burn natural atmospheric CO2 removers, to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere, then plant crops that are totally useless to the indigenous population, which will eventually fail due to the thin layer of soil, pumping more CO2 into the atmoshere!
You couldn’t make it up!

“Palm oil companies are suspected of illegally starting widespread forest fires in Indonesia in order to clear land for palm oil plantations, Indonesian officials say. The fires have caused record levels of hazardous smog in neighboring Singapore since Wednesday.”

“A staple for cooking throughout Southeast Asia and elsewhere, palm oil is the single largest traded vegetable oil commodity in the world, and global demand is rising rapidly, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says. The oil is increasingly used in the manufacture of cosmetics, soaps, pharmaceuticals and industrial products. It is also used to make biodiesel fuel.”

How in the world is it possible that so called green organizations like Greenpeace and WWF call CO2 a pollutant and promote and/or don’t question the legal and illegal burning of their once almost sacred rainforests? And meanwhile attack fracking and promote biodiesel?

The only green they nowadays like is the greenback I guess. And now they get an endorsement from your President to continue with their cynical and malicious propaganda.

I was hoping Climategate 3 would deliver the final nail to the coffin of CAGW, but so far it has been deafining silent. Is their anything to mention about the status of CG3?

Reports that say that stupidness hasn’t happened are always interesting to me,
because as we know, there are foolish fools;
there are fools we know as fools.
We also know there are foolish idiots;
that is to say we know there are some fools who do not know they’re idiots.
But there are also idiotic idiots – the most dangerously chaotic idiot-fool and I fear him”

Oh dear what to say….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It does not hurt to start the research into nuclear/thorium now. Hydrocarbons have a heck of a lot of uses (plastic, pharmaceuticals…) that as a chemist I hate to see them burned but I hate seeing food burned and the soil trashed even worse.

Putting this on WUWT will send the views skyrocketing!….kinda counter productive really…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
But the thumbs down will also sky rocket. Of course we are taking it that the numbers are not manipulated like they manipulate the temperature data….

The oddity and irony of our times.
Recent reports showing men shunning marriage (and kids). Congressional leaders praising the “sacred ground of abortion”. Some promoting “post-birth abortions”. Europe expanding euthansia if the parents are “distressed”. Condoms distributed for free in grade schools. Safe sex and no sex commercials plastered around the landscape. The only group that seems to want to get married are gays.

Will “find the children so we can save them” be a new campaign issue soon?

William Astley says: @ June 23, 2013 at 12:07 am
…..As there is a fixed amount land for human agriculture and there are strong farm lobbies in every Western country and there are lucrative subsides for the madness, a large amount of Western farm land is being used to grow food to convert to biofuel which results in a net loss of food for people that must be made up for either by starving people in third world countries or cutting down virgin forest. For example 40% of the US corn crop is now converted to ethanol….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I am going to add to that point

I think David P. Goldman (Spengler) is off by a few years but all it will take is a bad harvest and 2013 is not shaping up well. “May 10, 2011… Egypt is running out of food, and, more gradually, running out of money with which to buy it. The most populous country in the Arab world shows all the symptoms of national bankruptcy…”

Earlier in February 2013, Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said “…We should be expecting excellent crops in 2013 which could weigh heavily on prices… But the weather could turn negative, and because we are in a tight situation, prices could react violently and rise…”LINK: Cereal crop prospects for 2013 excellent but stocks tight-FAO

The world produced 2,241 million tons of grain in 2012, down 75 million tons or 3 percent from the 2011 record harvest. The drop was largely because of droughts that devastated several major crops—namely corn in the United States (the world’s largest crop) and wheat in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Australia. Each of these countries also is an important exporter. Global grain consumption fell significantly for the first time since 1995, as high prices dampened use for ethanol production and livestock feed. Still, overall consumption did exceed production. With drought persisting in key producing regions, there is concern that farmers in 2013 will again be unable to produce the surpluses necessary to rebuild lowered global grain reserves….

The USA no longer maintains the grain reserves it once had. In 2008 during the food riots in more than 60 countries the USDA announced “Our cupboard is bare.” So there is no backup grain stores just cash in a bank account.

….People consume a little less than half (48 percent) of the world’s grain directly—as steamed rice, bread, tortillas, or millet cakes, for instance.8 Roughly one third (35 percent) becomes livestock feed.9 And a growing share, 17 percent, is used to make ethanol and other fuels….
In 2007, a 200-million-ton jump in the global coarse grain harvest was responsible for nearly all of the increase in the total grain harvest. Production of coarse grains—a group that includes corn, barley, sorghum, and other grains fed mainly to animals—increased 10 percent, from 985 million tons in 2006 to 1,080 million tons in 2007. At 784 million tons, the record harvest of corn was buoyed by the growing use of this grain to produce biofuels, which prompted farmers in the United States (responsible for over 40 percent of the global harvest and half of world exports), Brazil, and Argentina to plant more land to corn. Production in China, the world’s second largest corn producer, inched beyond the previous year’s record….

Wheat harvests increased modestly, by 2 percent, to 605 million tons, with near perfect weather nurturing strong harvests in India, the EU, and the United States. Australia, however, normally the source of one third of world exports, faced lower crop prospects and depleted exportable supplies. And unfavorable weather meant a reduced harvest in China, the world’s second largest producer…

The amount of grain stored by governments— a good measure of the global cushion against poor harvests and rising prices—continues to decline. Global cereal stocks were expected to stand at 318 million tons by the close of the 2007 season, equivalent to about 14 percent of annual consumption. (See Figure 3.) These stocks, and the stock-to-use ratio, built up by bumper crops in the 1980s and the late 1990s, are now substantially below their all-time high.

Despite the record harvest, the low stocks and strong demand combined to push prices of all cereals to new highs…

Then you have all the game playing by the financiers as food commodities trading became attractive when the other financial bubbles burst.

How Goldman Sachs Created the Food Crisis
Since the bursting of the tech bubble in 2000, there has been a 50-fold increase in dollars invested in commodity index funds. To put the phenomenon in real terms: In 2003, the commodities futures market still totaled a sleepy $13 billion….speculators poured $55 billion into commodity markets, and by July, $318 billion was roiling the markets. Food inflation has remained steady since.

The money flowed, and the bankers were ready with a sparkling new casino of food derivatives. Spearheaded by oil and gas prices (the dominant commodities of the index funds) the new investment products ignited the markets of all the other indexed commodities, which led to a problem familiar to those versed in the history of tulips, dot-coms, and cheap real estate: a food bubble. Hard red spring wheat, which usually trades in the $4 to $6 dollar range per 60-pound bushel, broke all previous records as the futures contract climbed into the teens and kept on going until it topped $25. And so, from 2005 to 2008, the worldwide price of food rose 80 percent — and has kept rising….

The commodities trading that drove prices through the roof in 2008 has not gone away. Expect the bad news about spring planting in the USA to drive prices again.

This is an Interview by The Farm Journal of two commodity/grain marketing specialists.

Farm Journal: 2013 Outlook: Wheat Prices to Tag Along with CornNovember 5, 2012
…How would you characterize this year’s wheat crop and the market for the commodity, both in the U.S. and globally? What, if anything, surprised you?
[2012]
…. Both total wheat production and consumption in the U.S. are lower this year. Wheat only saw a small hit in yields as a result of the drought when compared to other crops with average yields 2.6 bu/acre lower this year than last…. While wheat disappearance for food and seed are slightly higher than last year’s totals, exports saw a sharp decline. Feed and residual use is seeing significant growth going into next year. Much of the increase can be attributed to higher corn prices due to this summer’s drought causing wheat to become a feasible alternative to corn.

Globally, wheat production did not fare as well. Wheat production is projected to be lower in Russia, Australia and the European Union as drought persists in each of these regions. Global wheat use is also projected to be lower….
[2013 forecast]Williams: There are several factors to watch for in 2013. The biggest factor in terms of wheat supply is to watch the drought situation on a global basis. Australia has seen some relief lately, but it looks like it is too late to have much of an impact on the current crop.

In terms of the U.S., much of South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Kansas are still in an extreme drought. Rain and snow over the winter and into the spring will play a vital role in determining wheat production in 2013. Well over 80% of the winter wheat crop has been planted already, so upcoming USDA reports on planted acres should provide a good estimate of how much wheat has been planted.

In terms of prices, the USDA’s most recent estimate is $7.65 to $8.55/bushel, but as of October 31 the Kansas City July 2013 futures price for wheat was $9.12/bu.

That was the ‘optimistic forecast’ from last fall. This is the first week of May’s news from The Farm Journal.

These rare weather occurrences kept many planters parked across the country. As of April 28, USDA estimates only 5% of the U.S. corn crop is planted. The five-year average for this time is 31%. Last year, nearly half of the corn crop had been planted…

For the coming week, USDA will not only release its weekly planting progress report, on Friday, May 10 it will release this month’s monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates and Crop Production reports…. USDA has a history of lowering yield expectations if the corn crop is not 40% planted by their May reports….

it is too early to say with any certainty farmers will change their crop mix. “Nobody has done any concrete changes yet,” he says.

What he will be watching closely is old-crop corn demand. Will USDA reduce exports more or increase feed usage? “What I would look for is if they don’t raise feed usage, it kind of tells us that we’ll import corn, feed more wheat or do something else to not tighten up that feed supply more than it already is,” Gulke says.

(A U-tube talk is included)
The USA IMPORT grain??? HUH? we are the world’s largest EXPORTERS…. link

Comments on The Farm Journal article from a cynical farmer…

The truth is that the northern plains still has frozen ground!! And the snow is not gone in much of the Midwest and northern Midwest. Once it is – it will take days of hot dry weather to dry it out. We are already into late May in much of the northern Midwest now. If you farm 2000 – 10000 acres like many farms do – how are you going to get it all in??
And if you do – what kind of yield is already lost!!?? Come on Jerry – if you are a farmer then you know there are some very serious issues here. Why are you trying to keep the market depressed. Always stating that the crop will miraculously all get in and that farmers will go 24 HOURS!! Wow really?? And Jerry is a farmer?? Why would a farmer run his own markets down with such talk??!The United States now has a 60 day food supply instead of the historical 90 day supply. We are one disastrous crop year away from serious trouble and this is the type of analysis we get from a FARMER??

Canada doesn’t look too good LINK: Canadian Stocks Dwindle, Planting Delayed and my area (NC) is not much better off than the Midwest. We had two weeks of warm weather mid April and since then it has been cold, The soil temp was 54 °F @ 8:30AM on the 7th of May and soggy, just right to rot the seed in the ground before it sprouts. In the first week of May I haven’t seen any plowed ground. The corn finally went in in mid-May on my road and its about a foot high compared to over my head on the coastal plain.

The flip side of the coin is how soon the corn is harvested in the fall and what the weather will be during the growing season and it is not just about rainfall. Dr. R.L. Nielsen at Purdue Univ. has another article.

Heat Unit Concepts Related to Corn Development:
Growth and development of corn are strongly dependent on temperature. Corn develops faster when temperatures are warmer and more slowly when temperatures are cooler. For example, a string of warmer than normal days in late spring will encourage faster leaf development than normal. Another example is that a cooler than normal grain filling period will delay the calendar date of grain maturity…

From the Financiers we have from last fall:

A Tale of Two Markets….As anyone that has experienced losses from a natural disaster well knows, insurance never covers the total cost of the experience. In addition to the financial costs is mental anguish. Together, these factors are going to make U.S. farmers stingy with their cash til September of 2013 when the next harvest occurs. U.S. farm equipment sales will certainly see the impact of the situation. Fertilizer sales will be less than might have been the case….

And from the same fellow more recently, Corn: Too Cold or Wet Yet so the traders have certainly noticed. There is an interesting graph in the article US corn planting progress vs corn price. the x axis goes from 7.04 (April 7) to 5.05 (May 5) and shows a real jump in price as the planting dates creep into May.

How long will it take for people to wake-up and realize the climate is NOT getting warmer and burning in cars is idiocy. not to mention that corn strips the land of nutrients.

The effects of corn monoculture on soils
As an example of the worst soil depleting crop, one has to look no further than at corn crops. crops grown on the same soil year after year deplete the soil. The question is what happens to the soil when corn is grown year after year in soil without any thought of crop rotation? It is a well known fact among farmers that corn depletes the soil faster than any other crop. It demands more nutrients and for this reason it is a crop that is rotated or is planted on land that has been fallow for at least a year. During this time a crop of vetch or some legume crop is sown and is plowed under in the fall….

Unfortunately much of the farmland is leased or owned by large corporations only interested in a quick profit. I am sitting on 100 ac that was ‘mined’ of its soil till it had a hard time even producing weeds. Land that used to be some of the best in the county/state according to the Ag extension agent.

Now that there are no more elections to face he is implementing the Belmont Challenge economic and social engineering scheme that was quietly laid out and offshored during the first term. I explained the World Orders Model Project on the previous thread just waiting for K-12 to deliver the desired consciousness through Obama’s poorly understood ed reforms. Here’s the uS, UK, Australian and German funded Future Earth Alliance that is intimately bound up with the new C3 Social Science Framework of the conceptual understandings students now MUST believe. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/future-earth-alliance-where-education-climate-and-economic-planning-are-all-cores/

The UN set up a new affiliate, the World Futures Council, in 2006. In 2009 they issued their blueprint for global change with a foreword by Ashok Khosla, Co-President of the Club of Rome. It is called A Renewable World: Energy, Ecology, Equality. In tandem with the real Common Core in education that insists on an equitable distribution of capacities and outcomes, we are to be getting social and economic planning using the Big Data we are generating. Just as this administration laid out last summer in a National Research Council report called “Computing Research for Sustainability.”

Which I read the week it came out. Been waiting for this shoe to drop ever since.

We shouldn’t be so close-minded. Think how happy this will make groups like Taliban and al Quaida, and countries like NK. Destroying our economy will make many people around the world and even in the US happy, and that has to count for something. As far as the environmental destruction and pollution caused by slash-and-burn policies, these are just the price we must pay for the benefit of the children, who will surely thank us later on. They will also not mind the lowered standards of living due to higher-priced forms of energy, and lack of jobs due to businesses fleeing elsewhere. We didn’t want them anyway.
We can live more simply, in huts, doing without electricity sometimes, and making do with less. We can live with windmills and solar installations covering huge swathes of landscape, and the bird carcasses scattered about. Birds are just messy and noisy anyway. The persistent haze from people burning wood and other things will be somewhat unpleasant, but that is what masks are for. We can always put barbed wire around the few remaining parcels of woods, and people can see pictures of them.
If we all will just pull together we can do this. It won’t be easy, and sometimes it will be unpleasant, but it’s necessary for the future of our planet. Yes we can.

“They the (US) have land for food or land for energy but not enough for both, unless they destroy whats left of the natural environment.”

That is so much clap trap: we have ample land for farming with plenty oil and gas in the ground. All of which can be used with little damage to the environment. Modern oil and gas extraction if far cleaner than it was even thirty years ago,

Stuart L seemingly left out a word. I’m sure he meant to say:

“They the (US) have land for food or land for [biofuel] energy but not enough for both, unless they destroy whats left of the natural environment.”

tango says:
June 23, 2013 at 2:48 am
“it is all to late everybody should go home and get under the bed . to escape heat from four Hiroshma size bombs exploding per second causing the world to heat up ”

Scarface says:
June 23, 2013 at 1:34 am
“How in the world is it possible that so called green organizations like Greenpeace and WWF call CO2 a pollutant and promote and/or don’t question the legal and illegal burning of their once almost sacred rainforests? And meanwhile attack fracking and promote biodiesel?”

You’re being unfair. They attack everything. Of course they attack those things the most that resonate with rich decadent stupid Westerners because that’s how they make their money. If attacking wind turbines becomes more profitable than attacking fracking they will do so.

…The European Union is investigating manipulation of benchmarks as part of a probe into whether energy traders skew prices of oil and other fuels for their own financial benefit. EU investigators in May conducted unannounced inspections of oil giants BP BP.LN +0.48%PLC, Royal Dutch Shell RDSB.LN +0.60%PLC and Statoil SA, STL.OS +0.08%as well as Platts, looking for evidence of benchmark manipulation going back as far as 2002. The companies have said they are cooperating with the investigations.

The probe comes as regulatory concern grows around the world about important market benchmarks set by unregulated entities in opaque fashion. A scandal involving the manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, an important interest-rate benchmark, has ensnared at least three banks. Regulators in the U.S. also are investigating the way benchmarks are set for a form of derivatives called interest-rate swaps.

——-
I also object to the administration using children for psychological warfare.

This is where a company like Lightbridge (LTBR) [ http://seekingalpha.com/symbol/ltbr ] comes into play. A $20 million company that’s been public since just after the dotcom crash, Lightbridge is making some headway into thorium and nuclear overall. The company recently patented a few designs [ http://www.ltbridge.com/technologyservices/fueltechnology/thoriumbasedseedandblanketfuel ] for thorium reactors that operate a little differently than LFTRs. One of the benefits of Lightbridge’s design is the ability to incorporate thorium fuel with many already-existing nuclear reactors, thus removing the need to install and fund massive new equipment. The company’s stock isn’t exactly in a position to surge quickly, as this seems to be the quintessential long-run high risk/high reward play (the company reported a net loss for the past two years).

And here’s a comment from a reader, Davewmart, (below the article) that provides some detail:

Thorium may also be used in conventional, or only slightly modified, reactors:

‘The thorium fuel is in the form of pellets composed of a dense thorium oxide ceramic matrix containing about 10% of finely blended plutonium oxide as a ‘fissile driver’. As a mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel variant it is familiar to the nuclear industry, but thorium-MOX fuel has certain advantages compared to the uranium-MOX fuels in use at some reactors around the world. It promises higher operating safety margins due to higher thermal conductivity and melting point, and produces no new plutonium as it operates. Thor Energy pointed out that thorium-plutonium fuels therefore provide a new option for reducing civil and military plutonium stocks.’

And:

‘Other approaches to begin using thorium include a research program by Candu of Canada and China National Nuclear Corporation to develop a version of the Candu design that could use thorium fuel as well as recycled uranium. Indian planners are moving towards a complex three-stage program to use natural uranium and then fast-neutron reactors to create uranium and plutonium drivers for a third stage powered by thorium.’

Lets hope that the party in opposition here makes this as big an issue as our AU friends have. In a sense we should welcome the chance to have this conversation. Many of you have worked hard to build us a winning hand.

Alexander Feht says: June 23, 2013 at 1:19 am “How do I shun a fool who points a gun at my head, and has his hand in my pocket?” This shunned has power only if you want to live under his gun.

About LFTR; learn the history of melted coolant reactors, and of reactive metals in reactors. Japan’s Monju NPP history may be instructive. The safest and most productive NPP are the US Navy’s light water PWR.

About Obama; see (a White House reporter for Yahoo! News) Rachel Rose Hartman’s gaffe of yesterday 22 June 2013, “he won’t be stopping in the country of his birth.”

andrewmharding says:
June 23, 2013 at 1:31 am
Stan, what you say just confirms the illogicality of AGW, slash and burn natural atmospheric CO2 removers, to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere, then plant crops that are totally useless to the indigenous population, which will eventually fail due to the thin layer of soil, pumping more CO2 into the atmoshere!
You couldn’t make it up!

“Palm oil companies are suspected of illegally starting widespread forest fires in Indonesia in order to clear land for palm oil plantations, Indonesian officials say. The fires have caused record levels of hazardous smog in neighboring Singapore since Wednesday.”

“A staple for cooking throughout Southeast Asia and elsewhere, palm oil is the single largest traded vegetable oil commodity in the world, and global demand is rising rapidly, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says. The oil is increasingly used in the manufacture of cosmetics, soaps, pharmaceuticals and industrial products. It is also used to make biodiesel fuel.”

A company called Solazyme is nearing the completion of industrial-scale plants to use patented algae to manufacture myristic acid, the high-value component of palm oil. This, and other products it is developing, could in time make palm oil plantations less valuable. See this article at http://seekingalpha.com/article/1513782

Solazyme (SZYM) [ http://seekingalpha.com/symbol/szym –this link contains links to other articles on SZYM and its myristic acid process] has a disruptive proprietary technology that uses algae to produce tailored, high-value oils that add value to a number of industries.
……………..
Solazyme is currently targeting the fuels, chemicals, nutritionals, and skin and personal care markets. Once Solazyme proves it can commercialize and deliver product in these markets, the future opportunity scale is enormous. The global demand for oil is huge and growing; and oils are present in almost everything we eat, see, and touch. The basic oils that we have traditionally relied on to meet our needs are plant oils, animal fats, and petroleum.

Funny you should bring up AQ since at almost precisely the same time the UN set up the World Future Council they set up the Alliance of Civilizations. Do look up the recent annual meeting in Vienna. I had never heard of AoC until the current director-general of UNESCO, a Bulgarian by the name of Irina Bokova, kept mentioning working with AoC as part of the concept of Education for Sustainability. That she says is necessary to get to the New Humanism that is a 21st century update to what Uncle Karl wrote about in the 19th.

In addition to required beliefs about AGW, beliefs about certain world religions and ethnic groups will also be required as the only acceptable perspective. I am not making this up. It was laid out in a 2010 UNESCO report I have. Even though for some reason it was actually printed in Russia.

I’ve never been a fan of affirmative action.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Any minority with their head on straight would figure out the ‘affirmative action’ actually means “We (the elite) think you are dumber than a brick but we want your vote so we can continue our plans for building slave quarters (aka “Smart Growth”) for you.”

Apartments are the core of any sustainability strategy. They are more resource- and energy-efficient than other types of residential development because their concentrated infrastructure conserves materials and community services. As part of an infill or mixed-use development, apartments create communities where people live, work, and play with less dependence on cars. This reduces the consumption of fossil fuels and their carbon emissions.

Through the NMHC Sustainability Committee, the Council is advancing industry best practices; working with lawmakers to adopt voluntary and incentive-based energy policy; and developing and promoting standards to help firms market their sustainability quotient.

This online resource is designed to help apartment developers and managers build and operate more sustainable properties and to help policymakers craft effective energy efficiency goals.

And Bloomberg is putting it into effect in New York. He really must have LOVED Sandy since it means they can insist on Smart Growth housing as replacement.

L.A. County’s Private Property War
….On Oct. 17, 2007, Marcelle opened the door to a loud knock. Her heart jumped when she found a man backed by two armed county agents in bulletproof vests…..

The men demanded her driver’s license, telling her, “This building is not permitted — everything must go.” Normally sassy, Marcelle handed over her ID — even her green card, just in case. Stepping out, she realized that her 1,000-square-foot cabin was surrounded by men with drawn guns. “You have no right to be here,” one informed her. Baffled and shaking with fear, she called her daughter — please come right away.

As her ordeal wore on, she heard one agent, looking inside their comfortable cabin, say to another: “This one’s a real shame — this is a real nice one.”

A “shame” because the authorities eventually would enact some of the most powerful rules imaginable against rural residents: the order to bring the home up to current codes or dismantle the 26-year-old cabin, leaving only bare ground…..

So what does the California bureaucrats want?
California has declared war on the most popular housing choice, the single family, detached home—all in the name of saving the planet.

In San Francisco and San Jose, for example, the Association of Bay Area Governments has proposed that only 3% of new housing built by 2035 would be allowed on or beyond the “urban fringe”—where current housing ends and the countryside begins. Over two-thirds of the housing for the projected two million new residents in these metro areas would be multifamily—that is, apartments and condo complexes—and concentrated along major thoroughfares such as Telegraph Avenue in the East Bay and El Camino Real on the Peninsula.

For its part, the Southern California Association of Governments wants to require more than one-half of the new housing in Los Angeles County and five other Southern California counties to be concentrated in dense, so-called transit villages, with much of it at an even higher 30 or more units per acre….

The attack on our freedom is multiple and “saving the planet” is the excuse.
1. Land-use regulations aka zoning.
This is a pre-packed deal from ICLEI. “Smart Growth” even put out A Citizen’s Guide to LEED for Neighborhood Development: How to Tell if Development is Smart and Green I found it at this planing board site: http://www.co.berks.pa.us/planning (Note: Smart Growth Alliance banner) Someone commented Berk county within city limits, now requires you reapply for the zoning of your property after you buy it. Massachusetts did the same thing with septic tanks in 1994 when I got out of that state. The new code was no ground water within 10 feet down from the bottom of tank IF you want to sell. (Most ground water is within ~2 to 4 ft in the spring on the east coast) Once the testing is done and found not to meet ‘Standard’ the house is CONDEMNED and the owner can not only NOT sell the property but can no longer even live in the house. We picked a major drought to have our system tested plus a bit of dancing and got it ‘Passed’ This is a really good way for the government/banks to pickup property as the owners end up abandoning it.

2. The second attack is jacking energy costs so high no one can afford to live in anything but the 14ft X 14 ft Slaves Quarters being designed just for us.

I now have changed my mind from believing Obama and his cohorts are out to destroy the economy and capitalism. They may have started out with that in mind but found it couldn’t be done so easily. They discovered it was easier to simply steal the money and so made the change to plunder the U S Treasury and the taxpayers for all they can get while they are still in power. Reviving the climate change drama, especially when adding the “for our children” mantra, is just the current addition of how do we steal even more money from the unsuspecting masses. The Mafia would be proud.

By the way, today, 23 June 2013 is the 25th anniversary of Dr. James Hansen’s 1988 congressional testimony on “Global Warming”.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>…
Snicker, It is now a balmy 72F (22C) at 9:00am here in mid NC while in DC it is 74F with a high of 84F (29C) forecast. Not exactly burning hot is it?

Next week Obama will bypass Congress and using “Executive Privilege” will make energy more costly for all Americans, because it’s somehow good for the children. Then he and a huge entourage will fly back to Africa to promote cheap affordable energy for Africa, because it’s good for the children.

The Presidents timing is interesting. According to polls the public is losing trust in him personally and his vision of government. If (and it is not certain) energy becomes an issue in the 2014 mid-terms it should be a winner for the smaller government side. How hard can it be to show voters that the people and institutions they had to bail out so recently are waiting for another windfall. Populism cuts both ways.

Nah, I tried to watch it. Can’t do it. That guy’s smug, arrogant voice makes me want to punch someone or something. He can’t even read his lines well, stumbling over the big words he doesn’t understand, like “the” and “for”.

If only the world was the fantasy land of unicorns and pixie dust that democrats seem to live in… ah, wouldn’t that be grand? We’d all have eternal high paying union jobs, with 51 weeks per year paid vacation, sleek efficient electric cars powered by wind and solar, no more endangered species because they’d all be protected and happy and healthy, no pollution of any sort, including independent thought or the tangy smell of firearms at the shooting range.

Ah yes (cue the Smurfs theme song quietly in the background), nobody would ever say a bad word about another race (wouldn’t that be grand? Us whites wouldn’t have our noses rubbed into the decisions made hundreds of years ago by our ancestors who were fleeing their equivalent of, well, democrats), immigrant doctors who are just being introduced to the very concept of antibiotics would be welcomed with open arms at all of the free hospitals where they would save lives and cure all diseases with a wave of a magic, environmentally sustainable medical technology.

There would never be floods, fires, droughts, tornadoes, hurricanes, nor’easters, famine, dictators, terrorists, christians, or any other undesirables, and the world would be decorated with the fresh, friendly, welcoming hands of married gay men. Abortions would be free and easy, and even 12 year old girls would never, EVER have to inform their parents.

Doesn’t that make you feel great about a democrat future? Nobody would ever be unhappy, for any reason, and we’d all have cake, and ice cream, and kool-aid, and smoke all the dope we wanted, with special places just for the crack addicts and heroin addicts where they could be happy and get their drugs and needles for free while being fed and clothed.

Yes, I too long for this wonderful future, where the only bad guys in movies and television would be guys like “Archie Bunker”, you know, republicans (people would actively booooo them when they came on screen), and the only ones who would actually have to do manual labor would be those loser right winger nutjobs in the flyover states. In fact, until they recanted their right-wingerness, they’d be chained up like the convicts they should be while the real people, the intelligent people, the educated people, the beautiful people would be free to live their productive and self-esteem inducing lives, completely free of the negativity that republicans bring wherever they go. Oh, and all bullying in schools would end, too.

If you too want to see this grand vision of the future come to pass, just look for the “D” when you vote. Remember, “D” means “DELIGHTFUL”!

(sorry, every time I am forced to hear Zero’s voice, my mind drifts to another place out of self-preservation)

It’s not the megalomaniac that put’s itself into power (a snake slithers by nature), it is they that obfuscate, provide blind support, and make excuses-for-all-abuses for them that provide the levers of power that enable them to destroy; [snip a bit over the top -mod]

But with the economy still in the tank and energy prices and business regulations preventing any kind of surge, the voting masses are primed and groomed for being bought. And with nothing more than trinkets mind you (aka free phones). The problem we face isn’t us voting him out, its convincing the masses that voted last time that free phones won’t result in being able to afford a decent living. Worse yet, some are willing to stay in poverty with their free phone instead of working a hard scrabble life without any phone at all to get somewhere.

“About LFTR; learn the history of melted coolant reactors, and of reactive metals in reactors. Japan’s Monju NPP history may be instructive. The safest and most productive NPP are the US Navy’s light water PWR.”

Doug: As I recall, that Monju reactor used sodium as its coolant. Sodium explodes and burns in the presence of air and/or water (I saw it happen during a chemistry lab in college once). GE-Hitachi’s PRISM rector also uses sodium as does the Travelling Wave Reactor (TWR) that Bill Gates has invented in. LFTR, on the other hand, uses a salt coolant recipe of fluoride, lithium and beryllium (FLIBE for short). The FLIBE salt, as I understand it, does not react with anything, making it safer than Monju, PRISM and TWR. No meltdowns, no explosions. The FLIBE salt simply solidifies as it cools after a shutdown or a leak.

Given that no explosions and/or meltdowns are possible with LFTR, I will suggest here (as other LFTR supporters will) that LFTR is inherently safer than the Navy’s PWR.

That whole thing with the free phones was such a symbollic snotty stereotypical putdown of an entire class of people. Do they even get that they were being held in ridicule by the very hand that gifted the phones? Do they understand the use of tinkets to “buy” an entire people into perpetual learned helplessness? Study history well. The only way to save an entire group of people is to tell them they are on their own! And NEVER accept a government hand-out! It is actually a violent act against you!

I know, we could go back to the late 17 and early 1800s and use the ultimate biofuel. Plant forests for wood? No. Buffaloes for buffalo methane? No. Dung fires?

C’mon, I’m talking about a super biofuel. We could use … ready … Whale Oil! We could hunt Sperm Whales! We could look for the mythical Moby Dick. (For those unfamiliar with this history get your minds out of the gutter.)
When we find old Moby we could breed him with maybe – I don’t know – a … nuclear submarine. (After all, in Obama’s world of peace and tranquility we won’t need ‘em for anything else.) We could create an ocean full of Moby Dicks, boring though that may be. Then we could use all those unemployed recent college graduates to act as hardy sailors and harvest all that whale oil.

There, climate change problem solved. But maybe the best way to solve the mythical climate change problem is to have Eric Holder investigate it. It’ll just simply disappear.

Then we could get on with real problems like; Fast & Furious; multi trillion dollar deficits; IRS targeting of political groups; EPA harassment, abuse of political enemies, and use of fictitious e-mails; the reasons behind the massive ammunition purchases; chronic 7-8% unemployment, 5 years of anemic economic growth; the massive jump in disability and food stamp applications; NSA spying; hacking of reporters’ computers; more leak prosecutions than all previous presidents combined; and, of course, Benghazi.

Oh, did I forget massive voter fraud in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Ohio?

Be warned those of you disparaging this Administration. We know who you are. For the “sake of the children”, We monitor all the terrorists and evil right wing deniers with our secret email and telephone monitoring program. Denying the threat of climate change is on par with espionage. Obama will be presenting his “Green Book” on Tuesday, the Green Revolution to save our planet has begun!

CodeTech says:
June 23, 2013 at 6:29 am
____________________
We will enjoy your world as we stroll happily across the deer- manicured lawns of our sustainable non- farm, gathering all that we need, like children picking wildflowers; carefree and safe- under the watchful paternal eyes shining down at us from every tree.

Personally, I’m shocked we haven’t been talking about writing Congressmen and Senators. Normally, there would be several links to resources to locate these individuals and voice your concerns, whichever way they may lean. (like this: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/members)

In this case, there may be little they can do, but it couldn’t hurt to demonstrate that we know how impotent they are becoming. Maybe a few of them would get on the back legs and start taking some umbrage.

The fluxed fuel fluid simply solidifies after a leak! What provides the shielding from the fuel now that it is exposed? Of course there are no real hazards in a witches brew of Fluorine, Thorium, Uranium, Beryllium and Lithium.

After RCRA was enacted, we no longer tried to clean and re-use waste once it had become mixed toxic and radioactive, so I had to monitor in-process radioactivity and dump the solutions before they became so – I could watch the Sun rise and set the instruments were so sensitively set.

I was always amused by the security provided expended fuel during refueling operations. Our sarcastic alternative was to offer all that could be carried away FREE!

About Obama-phones, what a clever way to get PRISM enabled cellphones into commerce. What will they think of next, now that that market is saturated? Oh, camera equipped set-top boxers. Clever NSA geeks! And hacking into automobile computers too.

The free phones idea started with Clinton, was supported by Bush, and continues with Obama (all kinds of politicians seek to buy votes). By the way, the phone companies that run this program are “government-approved” businesses. Another definition of the product they hand out: Ready-made listening devices. Wonder how many voters with free phones have their conversations stored on some server in Washington.

Gail, its comments like those which is why I read WUWT almost daily and digest comments. The entire analysis you provided while showing your work in this particular instance is excellent. The only thing I would add is that despite us starting to use more land for farming things, we are still using less farmland today than we did in 1900. The entire change of society and usage of industrial farming has made yields that much larger, and I think people all over the world miss the big picture in that we have tons of land to use to farm, and we have techniques to turn even the most barren soil into productive soil, the issue of course is money and the will to do so.

In 1990, there were almost 987 million acres in farms in the U.S., that number was reduced to just under 943 million acres by 2000, and then reduced to 914 million acres in 2012 (*1).

So the entire trend starting in 1900 is continuing with less land feeding 20 times more people than it did back than. I think my large point here is that the problem is not enough farm-land or planting too much corn, the issue is that we have TOO MUCH land sitting fallow. If you want to do stupid things like Obama and “grow your fuel” you HAVE to entice more people to grow food otherwise our food reserves will just continue to dwindle and one bad harvest means famine.

From the same page as before:

Two significant trends occurring in the agricultural sector during the past century involved the increased use of machines and government price supports. These factors combined to allow operators to increase the size of their farms and gain efficiencies.

You notice that they credit price controls on agriculture as a good thing since it forces less land to be used. This is the key right there. Price controls on agriculture are the reason WHY less land is being used so much more efficiently. Only the best farmland left is being used because anything less is simply not economical due to Government constraints.

So the entire blame for agriculture and a lack of food reserves is directly the fault of Government control of food prices. By micro-managing the costs like the Government HAS been doing for the last few decades they are simply causing this problem and will continue to do so until a huge famine DOES hit and causes starvation. One could say that price controls solved one problem and created several others. Welcome to Government I guess.

Please see this short clip of candidate Obama debating president Obama. It shows, really in the clearest possible terms, why you cannot trust politicians at the highest levels. Left or right, makes no difference: two heads, one snake, one master:

Doug Huffman says:
June 23, 2013 at 5:25 am
This shunned has power only if you want to live under his gun.
How, exactly, do I escape the gun of the U.S. government?
I’d be mightily obliged to know.

The voice of the more than half of the U.S. population now is “We wanna be slaves!”
Therefore, all your beloved “democratic” institutions work against individual liberty, suppress entrepreneurship and free market, suppress talent and true science, destroy families, watch our every step, and make us no better than trained animals.

Do you still hope that the system that makes you an exhausted animal would somehow save you?

The video showed plenty of wind turbines, and crops for fuel. But what about the solar panels and the electric cars? Or mention of how shale gas is reducing total US emissions?
If there were a genuine problem with global warming, the people least capable of dealing with it are the politicians. There is a total lack of focus on getting the greatest impact from the least economic harm. For any politician to admit to scale of policy failure so far exhibited, especially the most powerful leader in the world, is political suicide.

I wonder if the USA is perhaps buying itself a much enlarged Muslim terrorist future.

After Obama et al have succeeded in convincing the populations of countries like Bangladesh and other countries that the USA is responsible for all the climate and weather disasters that occur in their countries a percentage of those populations may come to feel that it is their devout duty to make the devil USA pay each and every drought, storm, or flood that they experience.

“just get a Thorium reactor program started. The technology has been around for years, and the Chinese are already headed down that path.”

And if you follow the links, in the linked article, the Chinese plan to develop and patent the technology. It was successfully developed at Oak Ridge, Tennessee in the 1960s. Are we going to be buying American tech back again from the Chinese?

This technology never went anywhere, believed my some to be because the military wanted plutonium for weaponry and thorium tech produced relatively benevolent waste. Oak Ridge was ORDERED by the AEC to stop all research on the molten salt reactor in 1974.

I’ve been to China half a dozen times re mining and development projects and, despite a communist government in charge, this country has the youthful zeal and confidence that we used to associate with America. In contrast, America is now bending to lefty political power, a product of lefty education that has taken possession of schools and universities. Is this how virile empires crumble?

Gary Pearse says:
June 23, 2013 at 9:35 am
I’ve been to China half a dozen times re mining and development projects and, despite a communist government in charge, this country has the youthful zeal and confidence that we used to associate with America. In contrast, America is now bending to lefty political power, a product of lefty education that has taken possession of schools and universities. Is this how virile empires crumble?

China invented capitalism, from them we all came. But, history demonstrates the repetition of tyrants and social corruption leading to millions being 100’s of millions being slaughtered. A Greek philosopher put it well; you can judge a society by the music they listen to. (..or what they vote for, etc.)

‘The fluxed fuel fluid simply solidifies after a leak! What provides the shielding from the fuel now that it is exposed? Of course there are no real hazards in a witches brew of Fluorine, Thorium, Uranium, Beryllium and Lithium.’

I admittedly am not a nuclear engineer or physicist, so I cannot speak to whether a leak in a LFTR is any better or worse than a radioactive water leak in today’s reactors nor how Kirk Sorensen and FLIBE Energy intend to deal with the risk of a salt coolant leak in LFTR. What I do know though is that you attempted to associate LFTR with the risks of sodium coolant and a sodium cooled reactor, and LFTR clearly is no such thing.

Doug, I assume you know who Alvin Weinberg was (may be now R.I.P.). Following the success of the molten salt reactor project at ORNL in the late 1960s, I doubt if he would have gone to the Nixon administration for more funding if he didn’t feel that he was on to something that was worth continued funding and support. It was politics and nothing else that brought an end to the project.

At any rate Doug, following Fukushima, I somehow get the impression that the elimination of the risk of meltdowns and explosions in nuclear reactors is far more important than leaks anyway. Furthermore, if you have a better way to draw down and eliminate our plutonium stockpiles, I’m sure there are many people in Washington and elsewhere who would like to hear your ideas.

Last time I checked, jet fuel comes from the same oil wells that other fossil fuels come from. Now I have little doubt that all those flights on the world’s largest private jet (Air Force 1), plus its entourage, on trips to such important hot spots as Hawaii (Holiday vacation), Bahamas (ocean studies for the little’uns), Idaho (skiing studies), Mexico (cultural studies for the little’uns), well, they probably slurped up at least several thousands and thousands of gallons of the stuff.

Now I’ve never believed in CAGW since I find it awful suspicious that the same scientists who endlessly bleat out about it manage to receive oodles of research funding from the same governmental entities that stand to benefit so much from it. But if Obama genuinely believes in all this, well you’d think he’d be a little more genteel in his profligate consumption of fossil fuels, or at least a little more discreet.

Ah, but then why would he have to be? After all, other Washingtonians, Hollywoodians, and elites who prescribe to this theory never seem to be called to task for their profligate (did I already use that word?) use of private jets, yachts, or their fondness for mansions (or multiples thereof).

And the United Nations, which belches out this lurid theory every opportunity it gets, never seems to be questioned as to how their climate change and ecology conferences (at taxpayer expense) always seem to find themselves in really nice, tropical, white sand beachfront, touristy kind of places.

But then again maybe no questioning is warranted by all of this. Maybe their CO2 emissions exist on a higher plane then the CO2 emissions of us lesser beings. Whereas our CO2 emissions probably reek of flatulence perhaps their CO2 emissions are sweetly perfumed and thus able to perfumigate the very theories they themselves present to us. Maybe their CO2 emissions are magical.

@CD (@CD153) 10:01 amI doubt if [Alvin Weinberg] would have gone to the Nixon administration for more funding if he didn’t feel that he was on to something that was worth continued funding and support

Oh really? People go to government to continue their pet projects regardless of merit chance of success and expectation of payoff. Fusion research isn’t the only example. The fact they are going to the government and not venture capitalists ought to tell you something about prospects for success.

If I may, I would like to urge proponents of LFTR and other Thorium based reactor designs to “zoom out” and look at the bigger issues involved. The focus isn’t the reactor, it is the Thorium fuel cycle. LFTR’s promise is a conceptually safe reactor design married to an as yet unproven, untested, continuous reprocessing of a highly radioactive working fluid from the reactor core. Think of the marriage of a metal smelter and an oil refinery in a hermetically sealed environment on the same site as the reactor.

The muscle of LFTR requires we create LFTR kidneys to remove reactor poisons from the blood of the LFTR core.

It isn’t the physics that is holding back LFTR. It is the chemistry and metallurgy. Even when we solve the technological problem of the reprocessing, who wants a smelter or oil refinery in our back yard. So there is still a NIMBY problem with a safe reactor.

The States and the People did NOT grant the federal government the power to govern the weather ( or healthcare, or retirement, … etc ). More importantly, as bad an idea as Prohibition was, at least the fools of the time realized they lacked Constitutional authority and passed an Amendment ( again, let’s disregard the overall folly of those knuckleheads for now ).

The current fools residing in the District of Criminals have such utter disdain and contempt for the Constitution and the States and the People that they don’t even feel the need to cover their follies under the fig leaf of an Amendment. This is how far we have fallen in just a couple of generations so just imagine what five or ten more into the future will bring. There will only be a USSA that dwarfs the heyday of Communist China and the Soviet Empire, except it will carry the illusion on Constitutionality. This will be the worst of all possible forms of “government” ever witnessed because tyrannies can be toppled, but Socialism disguised as (D)emocracy cannot, and will lead to catastrophic civil war. Folks better wake up now because there will come a time when it is too late.

Our Congress should use Barry’s Climate power grab for an article of impeachment, then convict him in the Senate and remove this scrawny little girl from the office he should never have been allowed to enter in the first place. Then all the members of Congress should impeach themselves and shut down the place until the next election. aside from nuking it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.

highflight56433 says June 23, 2013 at 9:49 am
…
In contrast, America is now bending to lefty political power, a product of lefty education that has taken possession of schools and universities. Is this how virile empires crumble?

Yes.

Historians have a chance to begin compiling a work to rival Edward Gibbon’s work: “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” while this ‘empire’ is still kicking …

Der Fuehrer conveniently ignores the hardships his policies create for low-income people raising their grandchildren right now, here, today Those hardships are A-OK with him so long as he and his crony capitalist buddies get richer off the backs of middle- and low-income people. And hypocrite that he is, you don’t see him rushing to downsize his lavish lifestyle, literally spending billions of the taxpayers’ money so he can live the celebrity meme.

And how smarmily he speaks of the world he envisions for our grandchildren – an Orwellian nightmare of tyranny and poverty for everyone except him and a few of his super-rich fellow kleptocrats.

What’s the number in here every day? 10,000+ The count on the video would be up because a percentage from here will have popped over to have a look at it. Doesn’t make ‘em fans.

I’m still waiting for anger in the general public to reach the heights it needs to – the world over. It’s amazing how laid back the population is to all this (the entire scam). I know that’s the MSM controlling that, but the bigger this balloon gets, the bigger the burst is going to be when it blows. And people are finding out on their own.

Are all these CAGW guys and gals convinced they’ll be out of harm’s way when it happens? Presidents and Prime Ministers? Leading climate “scientists”? All the rest of the advocates and alarmists? Really?

It’ll be like lancing a boil. Scary, ugly, but necessary for the health of the patient. Can’t wait.

Tom J says….
I agree with most of what you said except for one fabrication. Unemployment is actually ~22 to 23%.

John Williams on Lies, Damned Lies and the 7.8% Unemployment Rate Shadowstats.com Author John Williams wonders if politics are at play behind the latest jobs report, which shows 114,000 new U.S. jobs since September and a 0.3% drop in unemployment since August. Investors need to know how seasonal factors and month-to-month volatility affect the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ reports. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Williams explains why he doubts that we are in a recovery. The take-away? Look at the unadjusted figures before you sell your gold.
….John Williams: I normally put out a commentary on the numbers, and, in this one, I raised the possibility of politics as a factor. The problem is very serious misreporting of the numbers and the result is what appears to be a bogus unemployment rate. The BLS reported a drop in the unemployment rate from 8.1% to 7.8%, three-tenths of a percentage point, which runs counter to what is being experienced in the marketplace.

….What few people realize is that the headline unemployment rate is calculated each month using a unique set of seasonal adjustments. The August unemployment rate, which was 8.1%, was calculated using what BLS calls a “concurrent seasonal factor adjustment.” Each month the agency recalculates the series to adjust for regular seasonal patterns tied to the school year or holiday shopping season or whatever is considered relevant. The next month, it does the same thing using another set of seasonal factors…. [So it is not just temperature data that is ‘adjusted, do you think they hired Hansen’s brother at BLS?]

The BLS knows what the actual number is. It has an actual estimate for August, which is consistent with September, but it doesn’t publish it because it says it “doesn’t want to confuse data users.” But it is putting out numbers that have no meaning month-to-month. One month before the election and a month after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced Quantitative Easing (QE) 3, is not a time to have inaccurate numbers. The BLS should publish the consistent numbers now.

TGR: You have said that BLS has been using this recalculation method for years. Do you feel that this month the numbers were more skewed than usual because of the political timing?

JW: Because there is no transparency in the calculation and reporting process, it leaves open the possibility of manipulation. What has happened here, though, is that in the wake of the economic collapse, the seasonal factors have been heavily distorted and are not stable on a month-to-month basis. Where the concept originally might not have made that much of a difference, it does make a big difference now. I suspect that is why we woke up to such a screwy unemployment rate this time around….

…Up until the Clinton administration, a discouraged worker was one who was willing, able and ready to work but had given up looking because there were no jobs to be had. The Clinton administration dismissed to the non-reporting netherworld about five million discouraged workers who had been so categorized for more than a year. As of July 2004, the less-than-a-year discouraged workers total 504,000. Adding in the netherworld takes the unemployment rate up to about 12.5%.

The Clinton administration also reduced monthly household sampling from 60,000 to about 50,000, eliminating significant surveying in the inner cities. Despite claims of corrective statistical adjustments, reported unemployment among people of color declined sharply, and the piggybacked poverty survey showed a remarkable reversal in decades of worsening poverty trends…. http://www.shadowstats.com/article/employment

In 1970, 25% of the labor force was employed in manufacturing now we are burger flippers and sales clerks for Chinese crap.

…despite President Obama’s claims of a domestic manufacturing renaissance, U.S.-based industry’s share of total nonfarm employment has now sunk to 8.82 percent – below even its level in February, 2010, when manufacturing employment reached its absolute low point during the recession. The reason: Since that time, manufacturing has re-added jobs less than one-third as fast as the total nonfarm economy.

The IRS reports that the highest wage in the bottom half of earners is about $34,000. To be eligible for food assistance, a family can earn up to 130% of the federal poverty line, or about $30,000 for a family of four.

Even the Census Bureau recognizes that its own figures under-represent the number of people in poverty. Its Supplemental Poverty Measure increases, by 50%, the number of Americans who earn between one-half and two times the poverty threshold.

4. Based on household expense totals, poverty is creeping into the top half of America.

A family in the top half, making $60,000 per year, will have their income reduced by a total tax bill of about $15,000 ($3,000 for federal income tax and $12,000 for payroll, state, and local taxes. The Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau agree that food, housing, and transportation expenses will deduct another $30,000, and that total household expenditures will be about $50,000. That leaves nothing.

The fluxed fuel fluid simply solidifies after a leak! What provides the shielding from the fuel now that it is exposed?….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It goes in a dump tank if I recall correctly (I can’t hear videos any more) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbucAwOT2Sc

There is more to it than that. On average, a few years ago the average farmer lost $15,000 a year farming. So the USDA changed how they figure farm income. Now they ‘adjust’ farm income to include their estimated rental price of the house!

The other problem is while food prices have gone up and the profit margin for the middle man has gone up farmers get diddlesquat because of monopsony. Now we have Obummers Food Safety Modernization act that adds paperwork, regulations and the threat of heavy fines and or jail. Oh and with a one liner attached to any bill it will also regulate your home garden link

And if the FDA and USDA are not enough trouble we also have the (self-snip) EPA

“(EPA) is preparing to issue a proposed regulation that is twice as stringent as the current dust standard, and is more stringent than background levels of dust in many parts of the U.S,” Thies told the congressmen.

“Incredibly, we are talking about dust kicked up by tilling fields and harvesting crops, cattle movements, and pickups driving down dirt roads,”she said. “For agriculture, the current standard is already very difficult and costly to meet—doubling it would be virtually impossible.”

…the food bill for short, it gives the FDA authority and power for additional enforcement, including fines, penalties, license revocations and new requirements, and control over processes and harvest. All of this will add additional cost, which will just get passed on to the consumer, but that’s not even the worst aspect of the bill. Here are some of the troubling elements:
* Puts all US food and all US farms under Homeland Security and the Department of Defense in the event of contamination or an ill-defined emergency.

* Would end US sovereignty over its own food supply by insisting on compliance with the WTO, thus threatening national security.

* Would allow the government, under Maritime Law, to define the introduction of any food into commerce (even direct sales between individuals) as smuggling into the US.

*Imposes Codex Alimentarius on the US, a global system of control over food.

* Would remove the right to clean, store and thus own seed in the US, putting control of seeds in the hands of Monsanto and other multinationals, threatening US security.

* Includes NAIS, an animal traceability program that threatens all small farmers and ranchers raising animals.

* Would allow the government to mandate antibiotics, hormones, slaughterhouse waste, pesticides and GMOs.

So, how do you think that’s going to impact the agriculture industry? Well, it only gets better if the House bundles it together with HR 2749. Here are the hidden details of it:
* $500 annual registration fee on any “facility” that holds, process or manufactures food – “farms” are exempt.

*Empower the FDA to regulate how crops are raised and harvested – this would eliminate organic farming and lead to the forced purchase of products as mandated by the government.

* FDA would be granted the power to order a quarantine of a geographic area, which includes “prohibiting or restricting the movement of food or any vehicle being used or that has been used to transport or hold such food within the geographic area.” [Not to mention slaughter animals and burn buildings see Depopulation ]

* FDA has the power to make random and warrantless searches of the business records of small farmers and local food producers without evidence that there’s even been a violation.

The local Ag extension service is holding classes to ‘train farmers’ in the paperwork requirements. In a comment at http://www.warmwell.com a UK Dairy farmer faced with similar regs (they originate from WTO/UN) found that he spent 60 percent of his time filling out paperwork.

In the EU you can see the results of regulating farmers.

The Battle to Save the Polish Countryside
Julian Rose exposes the scandal of EU’s deliberate policy to get rid of family farms for the benefit of the corporations and gives a personal account of his battle

….the chair-lady said: “I don’t think you understand what EU policy is. Our objective is to ensure that farmers receive the same salary parity as white collar workers in the cities…To do this it will be necessary to shift around one million farmers off the land and encourage them to take city and service industry jobs to improve their economic position. The remaining farms will be made competitive with their counterparts in western Europe.”… This was greeted with a stony silence, eventually broken by a lady from Portugal, who rather quietly remarked that since Portugal joined the European Union, 60 percent of small farmers had already left the land. “The European Union is simply not interested in small farms,” she said.

What happens when a nation joins the EU
….That ’game’ was all too familiar to me. Spend hours out of your working day filling in endless forms, filing maps and measuring every last inch of your fields, tracks and farmsteads; applying for ‘passports’ for your cattle and ear tags for your sheep and pigs; re-siting the slurry pit and putting stainless steel and washable tiles on the dairy walls; becoming versed in HASAP hygiene and sanitary rules and applying them where any food processing was to take place; and living under the threat of convictions and fines should one put a finger out of place or be late in supplying some official details…

Losing out to corporate serfdom
Throughout this time, I clearly remember the sense of losing something intangible beyond recall; losing something more valuable than that which was gained on the eventual arrival of the subsidy cheque.

What we were losing was our independence and our freedom; the slow rural way of life shared by traditional farming communities throughout the world. You cannot put a price on this immeasurably important quality. It is a deep, lasting and genuinely civilised expression of life.

So now the Poles, with their two million family farms (half a million of them bigger than the small family farms mentioned earlier), were going to be subjected to the same fate, and Jadwiga and I felt desperate to try and avert this tragedy. An uphill struggle ensued, which involved swimming strongly against the tide and risking the wrath of the agribusiness and seed corporations who were gleefully moving-in behind the EU free trade agreements while a bought-out government stood aside.

What these corporations want (I use the present tense as the position remains the same to-day) is to get their hands on Poland’s relatively unspoiled work force and land resources. They want to establish themselves on Polish soil, acquire their capital cheaply and flog the end products of Polish labour to the rest of the world for a big profit.

Farmers, however, stand in the way of land acquisitions; so they are best removed. Corporations thus join with the EU in seeing through their common goals and set about intensively lobbying national government to get the right regulatory conditions to make their kill….

After the Henshaw ( Henshaw Documents ) and other incidents do you think anyone in his right mind would risk being a farmer? I quit selling and now produce only for my family. I am now raising a few sheep for the hand craft wool trade and a 100 ac farm now lays idle. The risk of stealing cars is a heck of a lot less then the risk of being a farmer these days.

“It isn’t the physics that is holding back LFTR. It is the chemistry and metallurgy. Even when we solve the technological problem of the reprocessing, who wants a smelter or oil refinery in our back yard. So there is still a NIMBY problem with a safe reactor.”

========================================

Actually, a test LFTR reactor was built in the 60’s and ran flawlessly for 5 years at Oak Ridge Labs, so this a proven technology.

There isn’t a metallurgy problem. There are plenty of metals that can easily handle 1600C of heated liquid salts.

There also isn’t a chemical problem as the liquid state of LFTR salts allows easy chemical removal of neutron-eating Xenon gas and easy recycling of the U233 produced in the Thorium fission process, which is fed back to U233 core, while the LFTR is operating at 100%….

LFTRs convert 99% of Thorium to energy thereby decreasing the amount of nuclear waste/mWh by a factor of 200 compared to LWRs. LWRs only convert 0.5% of U235 to energy before the U235 fuel pellets need to be reprocessed due to Xenon gas contamination/degradation).

In addition, LFTRs run at single atmospheric pressure as opposed to 100 atmospheres of pressurized water required for LWRs.

No water is required to run LFTRs as they use gas turbine generators instead of steam generators, so they can even be built in barren deserts (try that with LWRs). If there IS a leak to a LFTR core, the liquid salts simply drain to a containment tank by gravity and solidify when the salts naturally fall below 600C.

LFTRs are so safe that when the Oak Ridge test LFTR was operating in the 60’s, the scientists didn’t want to monitor the reactor over the weekend, so on Friday night, they’d simply turn it off, the salts would naturally drain to the holding tank and solidify. Monday morning, they’d heat up the holding tank to 600C, pump the liquid salts back into the reactor, and the fission process would continue unabated until Friday night came rolling around and they’d switch off again…

Try THAT with a LWR and see what happens… boom…!

While eco-wackos try to come up with ridiculous reasons why LFTRs shouldn’t be built, China moves on with their LFTR program and will eat our lunch AGAIN when their LFTRs come on line around 2025.

You have proven my point. Your discussion focused on the reactor and its safety and paid little heed to the reprocessing side of the process.

In a working LFTR generating commercial power, there is fission and the creation of daughter products and chains of decay. Reactor poisons accumulate. Dealing with these poisons is the trick. Check out Wikipedia LTFR:Removal of Fission Products This is all chemistry.

This reference from the Appropedia (see “Ease of Reprocessing”) has more detail.

The “one fluid” reactor was mechanically much simpler. …. By carefully sculpting the moderator rods, and modifying the fuel reprocessing chemistry, thorium and uranium salts could coexist in a simpler, cheaper but efficient “single fluid” reactor.

However, the reprocessing chemistry was much more complex. No simple, proven methods could separate the the nuclear ashes (fission products) from the fuels.

It then goes on to say:All the salt has to be reprocessed, but only every ten days.

A sparge of fluorine removes volatile high-valence fluorides as gas, including uranium hexafluoride containing the uranium-233 fuel as well as other isotopes of uranium; neptunium hexafluoride; technetium hexafluoride and selenium hexafluoride containing the long-lived fission products technetium-99 and selenium-79, as well as fluorides of various strongly radioactive short-lived fission products such as iodine-131, molybdenum-99, and tellurium-132. See fluoride volatility for boiling points. The volatile fluorides are condensed from the sparge fluorine, reduced back to less volatile lower-valence fluorides, and returned to the reactor.

It goes on for several more paragraphs…. but I think you understand how I equate this as a cross between smelting and fractional distillation in an oil refinery in a sealed environment.

I repeat. The reactor itself looks very safe. The LFTR fuel reprocessing might even be much safer than conventional U-Pu reactors with LTFR having much shorter half-lives of the waste products.

The amount of waste involved is about 800 kg per gigawatt-year generated …., [very impressive] so the equipment is very small. [Sorry, this does not follow. — maybe only 0.01% is waste, but you are processing 10% of the core per day.]

Continuous, remotely controlled, reprocessing of the core, at a rate of 10% of the core per day, of a high-gamma ray, high temperature molten-salt amalgam of Thorium, Uranium, Actinides, and a dozen other fission products is no easy feat.

Note well that the 2-fluid core (U-233 core, Thorium blanket) is mechanically more complex, but allows for a simpler reprocessing. A 1-fluid core is the mechanically simpler design (and the one most talk about), but requires the more complex reprocessing scheme. So it is important not to confuse the differences.

@Richie, well I just had another look, and the counter now says 192k+, as you said. Then I noticed the “subscribe” button had the number 334,115. Honest to god, I wasn’t looking at the subscribe button by accident before, as I wasn’t even aware of it. I guess people subscribe to keep track of the replies. Weird.

Alexander Feht says: June 23, 2013 at 8:55 am “How, exactly, do I escape the gun of the U.S. government? I’d be mightily obliged to know.” You must read more carefully. He has power only if you want to LIVE under his gun. One escapes such living by self-immolation as our Patriot Forefathers, your’s Russian and mine, taught us.

Now at 251,662 views with Like 2,059 Dislike 1,006. Of course there are numerous other copies with much smaller numbers of viewers, but these numbers are for the version the Whitehouse uploaded to their site on YouTube.

Gary Pearse says:
June 23, 2013 at 9:35 am
“just get a Thorium reactor program started. The technology has been around for years, and the Chinese are already headed down that path.”

And if you follow the links, in the linked article, the Chinese plan to develop and patent the technology. It was successfully developed at Oak Ridge, Tennessee in the 1960s. Are we going to be buying American tech back again from the Chinese?

I’ve a friend, retired from GE Nuclear, who knows more about reactor designs and costs than anyone else I know. He estimates the capital investment of getting a successful thorium reactor going as about $300 Billion.

The 1960s project is now so old, and the personnel long retired and gone, that it is exactly like starting all over again. So, we can buy from the Chinese if they get a reasonable design working, or we can pay for it ourselves again. Which is the better economic deal? I dunno.

The “$300 billion” is an absurd number. There are already corporations ready to BUILD LFTRs like FLibe Energy Run by Kirk Sorensen.

The Main reason Flibe can’t get LFTRs built is that the rules/regulations/approval process isn’t in place for LFTRs in the US. A fairly straight forward process, but the NRC/EPA and other agencies aren’t interested in LFTRs as it doesn’t serve their agendas.

You have proven my point. Your discussion focused on the reactor and its safety and paid little heed to the reprocessing side of the process.

In a working LFTR generating commercial power, there is fission and the creation of daughter products and chains of decay. Reactor poisons accumulate. Dealing with these poisons is the trick. Check out Wikipedia LTFR:Removal of Fission Products This is all chemistry.
====================================
Indeed, there is a lot of chemistry, but hardly all. From your own link:

Some elements like Xe and Kr come out easily as gas, assisted by a sparge of helium. In addition a part of the “noble” metals are removed together with the gas as a fine mist.

The more “noble” metals (Pd, Ru, Ag, Mo, Nb, Sb, Tc… ) do not form fluorides in the normal salt, but form fine metallic particles in the salt. They can plate out at metal surfaces like the heat exchanger or some kind of high surface area filters that are easier to remove. Still there is some uncertainty where these noble elements end up, as the MSRE only provided a relatively short operating experience and independent laboratory experiments are difficult.

But there is still significant chemical reprocessing of the salt. That is a good thing. Since we’re talking chemical processing and separation instead of isotopic reprocessing and separation, it is relatively easy to do. Conversely uranium enrichment is much more complicated because the isotopes cannot be processed chemically. And, no, I would say that the 2 salt designs are more common than the single salt designs.

I think a fair assessment of the technology is provided in one of the linked references:

If Obama goes all in on a carbon tax or increased coal plant standards, then I think at least one of WV’s senators is going to have some serious problems. Manchin would be the obvious one but he was just re-elected. Maybe Rockefeller won’t be able to buy his way out of this one in 2014. It’ll also make Baucus’ bow-out in Montana all the more prescient. It’s almost like he knew this was going to happen…

@Tsk Tsk 5:27 pmIndeed, there is a lot of chemistry, but hardly all.
Ok, fair enough. It is not “all chemistry”. I just wanted to point out the elephant in the room.
The concept of on-site continuous reprocessing is going to be the engineering and regulatory restraints on LFTRs, but key to LFTRs economic viability.

If you think that the two-fluid core design is favored, then there is another issue: Oak Ridge never built one; they built the one-core MSR. So who has?

The “$300 billion” is an absurd number. There are already corporations ready to BUILD LFTRs like FLibe Energy Run by Kirk Sorensen.

The Main reason Flibe can’t get LFTRs built is that the rules/regulations/approval process isn’t in place for LFTRs in the US.

My friend knows the current regulatory process inside and out, and part of his cost estimate is based on regulatory and legal hurdles. Look, all I’m telling you is what someone incredibly knowledgable about nuclear power thinks is a best guess for how much effort is needed. You do know that $300 billion is very easy to spend if governments and lawyers are involved?